In the past, there wasn’t much humans could do in the dark. For our early ancestors, the work of hunting, preparing food, building and mending was done in the light, and the dark was when predators roamed. So, scholars hypothesise, our early ancestors would gather around the campfire and listen to stories. A study of a contemporary hunter-gatherer society in Namibia and Botswana reveals that as much as 80 per cent of talk around the campfire involves stories. When we fill our evenings with books, movies, soaps and chats, we’re just doing what we’ve always done: using stories to get us through the dark.
But it’s not just the physical darkness that stories shield us from – it’s the darkness “out there” too. Just like the mornings and afternoons of winter, the abyss lingers around the periphery of our days, threatening us with our own end times. Stories keep our minds busy – they give our lives purpose. Without them, the moments of our days would be empty and meaningless, and what’s worse, we’d see it.
We process the world through stories – news reports, sports reports, government debates, advertising, computer games, TV, religious texts, our very daydreams and nightmares; stories are our lives. We all, mostly unconsciously, think of ourselves as the main character in stories we make up all day long. We have goals for the days ahead, obstacles get in the way of our plans, allies help us and villains (like that guy who cut me up in traffic) hinder us, and we rarely act “out of character”, unless we’re three sheets to the wind. We live, we thrive, through stories.
I’d go as far as to suggest that stories afford us a kind of superpower, one that protects us from darkness in many forms. Narrative – or storytelling – evolved so that we might have a greater understanding of ourselves, others and the world around us. When our ancient ancestors heard that a friend or relative was recently gored by a wild boar, they didn’t need to be gored themselves to understand the danger. Through storytelling, we’re able to learn from others’ struggles without coming to any harm ourselves. And when we hear the stories of people who suffer, whose days are shrouded in darkness, we don’t need to suffer ourselves before we help them.
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To have our stories heard by others is profoundly powerful, particularly when it comes to traumatic experiences, which makes books such as Martin Doyle’s Dirty Linen and memoirs such as Poor, by Katriona O’Sullivan, hugely important. By sharing their stories, individuals have the opportunity to reclaim the narrative around difficult times and can free themselves from shame or secrecy that may haunt them. By reading or hearing those stories we can understand, empathise, make changes or just feel less alone.
Whether struggling with physical or mental ill health, the creation of new stories around ourselves can provide new, more constructive or simply more tolerable meanings for the events that are happening, or have happened, to us. Sometimes it takes a therapist to help us get there: cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) helped me change the narrative in my own head. For years I had been telling myself I was worthless and disgusting, but CBT helped me reconstruct the story around a particular episode in my life, allowing me to understand and address my inner critic and, ultimately, manage my depression.
Stories are there when life becomes grey and joyless: they can be an escape when life is fraught or difficult, a distraction when things get boring, and company when we feel lonely. I watched 13 seasons in a row of the American fantasy-drama Supernatural to cope with a time when life was fraught and boring and lonely, all at the same time. It was a toxic work environment and in the end I left – but that’s another story.
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Stories, going back to their campfire roots, have the power to bring people together and create or strengthen a sense of community. Internet fandom is the prime example – people separated by distance come together in a digital space in praise of TV shows or books, sharing feelings of camaraderie and offering support to one another in a world that may not share their enthusiasm. TV shows and books are like a new kind of campfire and the stories of fan fiction are like expressions of love and belonging in those fan communities.
Outside the digital realm, time spent with friends and loved ones, sharing the seemingly mundane stories of our lives, is wonderfully, exponentially mood enhancing, like horses nibbling their stablemate’s withers or monkeys plucking fleas from their companion’s coat. This seemingly inconsequential activity builds and secures bonds and makes us feel acknowledged and valued.
People who tell good stories have others in the palm of their hand – think of the impressive raconteur you’ve met at a party or event. These people are often the highlight of the evening. When Bart Simpson hugs his TV, we laugh because we know, deep down, that it’s based on a truth. We do love TV, because it tells us stories. It’s no surprise that a study of a modern hunter-gatherer society revealed that good storytellers have better reproductive success than other members of the group.
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The flipside, though, is that stories are so powerful that businesses and organisations exploit them to influence and persuade us. The search terms “storytelling for business” and “storytelling for politics” uncover lots of illuminating, not to mention rather alarming articles and videos on how ordinary humans can’t resist stories, which means we can be manipulated. In these days of short attention spans and the paltry soundbite, rhetoricians can jump ethos and logos and head straight for pathos, with arguable success – Trump’s story about pets being eaten in Ohio certainly made us feel something, but it might not have been what he was hoping for.
On the whole, though, stories are a power for good. Stories light up our days, give our lives meaning and help us understand and empathise with others. They can improve our mental health, keep us company, divert, distract, engage and motivate us. They are the most potent fuel we can feed our brains, whether through reading, writing, telling, watching or listening to them. Not just a superpower, stories are the super trouper that gets us through the dark.
So I’m off down the bookshop and I’ll see you there.
Tara West is a lecturer in the School of Arts, English and Languages at Queen’s University Belfast
